Brexit - behind the scenes

Now shut down and waiting for the next big exercise in UK democracy, this is the BBC’s main election production hub at Elstree, the BBC studios right on the top edge of London (also the home of EastEnders and Holby City).

Next door, literally, is the BBC’s huge election studio, used for election coverage back in May, and of course, the UK-wide general election in May 2015.

The number of live locations around the UK and across the world for such an important vote is so large that one single production gallery could not possibly cope with them all.

So responsibility for overnight coverage is split between a number of sub-hubs, each one dealing with a more manageable number of locations and alerting the main studio when something is about to happen.

Our sub-hub handled everything from counting votes in the City of London to the reaction of the Asian markets in Singapore as the momentum towards Leave started to become clear. As the world woke up to a Brexit victory, we went live to Warsaw, to trading rooms in the City and finally to the Bank of England for the live statement by governor Mark Carney,

Most lives through our hub were done with lightweight bonding equipment (which uses multiple 3/4G SIM cards bonded together to create a broadband path fast enough for live video). For the 2010 UK general election, the BBC used just one solitary bonding unit. This time, they were absolutely everywhere. In six short years, the impact of this technology has been revolutionary.